Norma reached out to Father Thomas Luczak at the nearby Sacred Heart Catholic Church, and Fr. Norma Pimentel, Executive Director of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Rio Grande Valley, and her staff first considered providing services to the migrants at the bus station, but the number of people made working on-site nearly impossible.

Many were also in shock, having been through traumatic experiences in their home countries and during the journey through Central America and Mexico. Not given a chance to shower in Border Patrol custody, many of the families arriving at the bus station were still muddy and wet from their journey across the border. Tired and hungry migrants crowded into the bus station, trying to buy tickets to reunite with their families in cities as far away as New York and Seattle. During stretches of the summer, immigration officials transported hundreds of migrants per day to the McAllen Greyhound bus station so they could continue on to their destinations in the United States where they would have their Immigration Court’s hearings. To make room for these children, officials began releasing adults with children from their custody.

The community of McAllen, Texas, just over the border from Reynosa, Mexico, experienced the arrivals firsthand.īorder Patrol facilities could not accommodate the unprecedented number of unaccompanied minors arriving in McAllen. Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Sector alone processed 94,450 family units and unaccompanied children, representing three-quarters of all migrant families and unaccompanied children that the Border Patrol encountered during the year. This increase was especially apparent in southeast Texas: in FY 2014, the U.S. In the summer of 2014, the number of migrant families crossing the U.S.-Mexico border jumped significantly. Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande ValleyĬATHOLIC CHARITIES OF THE RIO GRANDE VALLEY

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